Looking at USAirnet,Intellicast and NOAA at McCall. One says snow for Sunday/Monday the other says Mostly Sunny and NOAA says partly cloudy with 20% chance of precip. That's a pretty big swing when your trying to plan a trip. I know anything more than 24 hours out is a guess but sheesh. Anyone have any good recommendations for Idaho weather? I'm looking at the area from Caldwell to Grangeville for Sat-Tuesday. I have a whiskey compass in my plane and that's it..no attitude whatsoever so I won't push weather at all. California to Southern Idaho looks great all weekend but still trying to decide if I want to head North to Orofino or not Saturday evening.

Snowing here in Jackson from 9500 msl and up now.

http://www.alltravelcams.com/viewer_gwc ... height=800

Without looking at any other weather forecast source other than this, I'd say you'll be fine until Saturday night.

It's your job as PIC to gather wx forecast data and interpret it as best you can, but as a casual conversation regarding weekend weather, the position of the jet stream can be very telling. Rule of thumb: When the jet is north, the region south of it experiences high-pressure-like conditions and warmer temps. When the jet is south, usually low-pressure-like conditions and cooler temps/precip if there is moisture to the north of it. When the jet is right overhead, look out, because that is most often the storm track. If there's no weather/moisture to drag into the region, then all that means is wind.

So, looking at that jet position forecast, about 96-108 hrs from now, the jet should be positioned over central Idaho.



The flying really becomes sweet going into Fall, as the temps drop and cooler high pressure masses occur. Clear + cool = yeah!

We were at JohnsonCK last weekend. Got rain late Sat. and had to spend Sunday night there due to low ceilings and rain. It was cold. Snow was fresh the peaks, 9,000'. We were able to get into Root and Reed Ranch on Sat. a.m. It is the time of year you can get weathered in there. Paul and Bev, caretakers, are leaving on the 11th. We are headed down to Eagle LK, CA this weekend, maybe catch the Black Rock and end of Burning Man
John and Lora Lee

More importantly, I hope you have your THICK bag and maybe a propane heater and long johns. It's getting chilly at night. I took my parents up to Big Creek a few years ago in early September. I have a great picture of them huddle next to the fire the next morning. It got down into the low teens that night. My mom said that had she known they had rooms available, she'd gone up to the lodge!

navmonster is still showing a decent sized fire next to bruce meadows, which is where i usually start my descent into the middle fork region...looks a little to me like a dry weekend in there, i'm headed to the B sunday and mccall....jo

AvidFlyer,
This weekend is looking GOOD! Expect clearing and warmer temps by late Thursday, Friday AM at the latest. Sat and Sun should be perfect flying weather. It HAS been unsettled, and the last two weekends sucked, but my money is on it being perfect.

This forecast is half based on the local weather forecast, half on my experience in Idaho for a while now, and half because I plan to be in Homedale Sat. AM see ya there!

Seriously...I think it's looking good for what you have in mind.

My weather gathering skills says it's good to go starting at daylight tomorrow morning. I'm planning wheels up at daybreak direct for Vines, coming home sometime Friday. Forecast looks perfect through Friday, like really perfect, but after that it looks more iffy.....

Thanks for all the info guys. I grew up in Idaho and learned to fly in Spokane WA but I left there right after my checkride and honestly didn't know crap about weather other what I needed to spout off for the examiner. The purpose of this thread I guess was to try and get warm fuzzy that the rest of my trip after Homedale is going to work. My baby sister followed my footsteps and joined the Air Force. She left for Basic Training 3 weeks ago. My Mom had kids in the house for 30 years and she is the last to leave and she's taking it really hard. The whole goal of this trip is a surprise visit.....ya ya I know... time to spare go by air but driving that route is more than double the flying time. I just simply can't do it over the Labor Day weekend unless I want to spent 75% of the trip driving. I'm not going into the Backcountry this trip. My main area of focus is up North towards Lewiston and Grangeville which is a couple hundred miles from JC and that area. Any other info from locals would be great...What is the typical cloud cover this time of year when the forecast is partly to mostly cloudy?

I live 1 mile east of the strip in weippe .weather looks good for the weekend come on up.My plane is hangered in Orifino and I keep it at the Dairy part time.I cant go flyin with you, to busy elk hunting and building a house.But if you do a fly buy ill come over to the dairy and B.S.with you.Like to check out your plane.If you no where new pioneer log home is at. Im 1/2 mile south of there cant miss it.house is framed up equipment all over the place .
Feel free to call for real time weather.208 435 4092 John

It doesn't matter if it's snowing in McCall, because you have no need to go there. If you're trying to get from Caldwell to Lewiston in marginal conditions, you can usually just follow the river! It goes right through Hell's canyon, which is an excellent north/south corridor that usually takes you right under the weather. McCall is 5000 ft, and has some 9000 ft mountains in the area. 35 miles to the west, is Oxbow on the Snake River at 1700 ft!

I regularly fly up and down Hell's Canyon, and here are a couple of tips based on my experiences:

1) Weather forecast:

Use a site that will forecast both the temperature and the dew point! I usually use wunderground.com. On wunderground, they have the usual five or six sunny or rainy icons in a row for the upcoming week's weather. Underneath each icon is a link that says hourly. Click it for a given day, and it gives you a bar graph of the temp/dewpoint at various times of the day. This is incredibly valuable information and most sites don't report it.

The temp/dewpoint spread is what determines the height of the cloud ceilings! The standard value is 4.5 degrees per thousand feet, although it can vary quite a bit in reality. I just use five degrees per thousand because it makes the math easier and it errs on the side of caution. So, if the dew point is 40 and the temp is 60, that's 20 degrees which should give at least a 4000' AGL cloud ceiling.

I check the weather for Joseph and Grangeville so that I have a sense of what to expect on both sides of the canyon. Joseph is at 4100 ft, and Grangeville is at 3300. If you can fly into them, you can certainly fly the canyon, which is much lower. It's a narrow, deep, V shaped canyon, so the more altitude the merrier. I generally won't fly it if I can't maintain 4000 MSL.

2) know your outs
The obvious two are on the chart, one at each end of the canyon: Oxbow and Rogersburg. However, there are several uncharted strips along the river at various bars and ranches. Find out where they are and mark them on your chart!

3) carry your gps
You can't get lost in the canyon, it's like Luke Skywalker flying the trench on the Deathstar. However, one huge problem can be strong winds. I have experienced 50mph headwinds and tailwinds on a few occasions down in the canyon, when it was blowing perhaps 30 or so up at 8500 MSL. Use your gps to keep an eye on your ETA and know your fuel reserve.

Also remember that all data comes from the same source, it's just presented, and extrapolated/interpolated in slightly different ways, which is prob the reason for the discrepancies between sites.

For instance, the point forecasts from NWS are automated calculated values for precip and freezing level, etc that are based on data from the area forecast. For this reason I don't trust them as much so I only read the area forecasts.

I prob have around the same number of hours as you, and I still am not comfortable pushing weather because I feel it's one of those beasts that you need to understand well before you run the gauntlet with any confidence, and even then many pilots better than myself have played and lost.

Don't let anyone tell you what the weather is. To expect anyone that's not a real forecaster to predict weather for you based on their farmer's almanac is...not good. View the text forecast and NWS forecaster discussion, view the satellite and radar, check metars and tafs, and then choose. Cuz it's really scary when it actually closes in. My only experience with that was VFR into IMC in smoke, and that was enough for me.

/weather weenie

Thanks for the great info. We get spoiled flying the Sacramento Valley down here. It's clear something like 300 days a year. The wind is the only aspect of weather I ever think about. I touched base with a few members on here from the local area so I can a real time report before going.

Stol wrote:Snowing here in Jackson from 9500 msl and up now.

http://www.alltravelcams.com/viewer_gwc ... height=800

Snowing!? music to my ears!!! (well not for flying but for skiing!)

Looking like the Lewiston Grangeville area is going to get some nasty winds on Saturday afternoon which is right about when I was planning on arriving up there.

AvidFlyer wrote:Looking like the Lewiston Grangeville area is going to get some nasty winds on Saturday afternoon which is right about when I was planning on arriving up there.

You can always rent a car in Nampa/Caldwell. Try Enterprise. Sometimes they have very cheap weekend rental rates.

Or, Horizon fly's to Lewiston from Boise. You can park your plane at BOI and get a ride to the terminal.

58Skylane wrote:

AvidFlyer wrote:Looking like the Lewiston Grangeville area is going to get some nasty winds on Saturday afternoon which is right about when I was planning on arriving up there.

Or, Horizon fly's to Lewiston from Boise. You can park your plane at BOI and get a ride to the terminal.

Never mind on the Horizon flights. Way too much money and no good times available for a quick flight up there and back from Boise.

Today until noon or so was GREAT flying weather, at least way over on the east side of the state. Then just a little breezy, maybe 10 to 12 out of the south, still clear blue. There were 7 or 8 gravel bars on the Snake that needed the rocks rearranged a bit. Had a very close flyby with a pair of bald eagles, like maybe 45' off my wing, one on each side!

Homedale Sat. AM, see ya there.

Missed seeing you at Homedale somehow. Hope your trip was good.

Flew to Smiley Creek yesterday. Left here(KBIL) about 8:45, wandered thru Yellowstone a bit and then went direct to Smiley. Eventually drifted up to around 14,000 to see if it would get smooth. Never did. The last 100 miles sucked. Departed Smiley around 1 pm. Same crappy turbulence, went right to 13,500 and had the same 30 knot winds out of the west. Smoothed out a little crossing back into Montana but moderate turbulence the whole way.